Punters stuck in the middle of Australia’s energy war

There’s a quaint old notion that if you get the policy right, the politics will follow.

It’s rooted in the idea that a policy truly in the best interest of the voter is the one that will best be able to withstand the scrutiny of opposition parties and journalists, and punters will eventually cut through any spin and see through to the substance.

This week at the National Press Club, Cabinet minister Josh Frydenberg gave a thoughtful speech on energy, urging an end to policy paralysis and calling for extreme ideologues on both ends of the debate to put the consumer first.

“This is a practical problem not one which extreme ideologies can solve. We need to find sensible, workable, affordable market-based solutions that meet the requirements of the Australian people,” he said.

Sounds like a no-brainer, right?

You would hope and expect that MPs elected as our representatives would always act in our best interest, pursuing policies that are to our benefit.

But sadly, with the vexed political issue of energy, this has not been the case since the stoush over the emissions trading scheme that helped Tony Abbott into The Lodge as he campaigned against Julia Gillard’s carbon tax.

As Frydenberg bemoaned this week, energy policy is no longer about getting electricity to people at the lowest possible price, it has become a cultural issue, inextricably linked to climate policy.

It has also become a proxy war within the coalition between conservatives, who would like to see Australia withdraw from the Paris climate accord (despite this being signed off by Abbott), and moderates under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who believe that most Australians accept the need to be part of global efforts to adapt to a carbon constrained world.

VideoUp to half of plant and animal species in the world's most naturally rich areas, such as the Amazon and the Galapagos, could face local extinction by the turn of the century due to climate change if carbon emissions continue to rise unchecked.

But as one group of ideological spear-carriers seek to gain advantage by waging a political attack on the other, the poor punter is stuck in the middle, scratching their head as each power bill comes in.

It would be a boring debate if it didn’t have such serious consequences for the consumer.

And as a voter, you should be furious that politicians can’t agree on a policy framework that allows the market to just do its thing and provide power to consumers at the most competitive price.

But energy is not the only area where politicking is getting in the way of good policy, and politicians on both sides of the Parliament are equally guilty.

Just yesterday, the Australian Medical Association came out to implore Labor to support the Government’s proposed 0.5 per cent increase to the Medicare levy to cover the National Disability Insurance Scheme, rejecting the party’s repeated claim that the scheme is fully funded.

Evidence to a parliamentary committee last year from Treasury officials explained that there is a $55 billion shortfall of Commonwealth funds for the NDIS over 10 years, with most submissions, including from disability groups, supporting the Medicare levy increase.

But this has not stopped Labor taking a strident position against any increase, leaving the scheme in jeopardy and creating unnecessary uncertainty for the 460,000 people expected to take part in the NDIS by 2020.

Likewise on schools funding, squeals from the Catholic sector about the genuine needs-based model in place means we are likely to see a shift in position based on political advantage, rather than policy merit.

A senior Opposition MP said to me recently: “Why on Earth would they have started a fight with the Catholics?” I ventured that perhaps, heaven forbid, because it was sound policy.

“That can’t be it,” the bemused MP said, without a whiff of irony.

And likewise, the Government has been quick to rule out changes to capital gains tax, negative gearing and superannuation tax perks just because Labor has proposed them, even when they have considered similar changes themselves.

As Frydenberg said, “ideas are being judged on their provenance not their merits”.

In a similarly mind-numbing display of partisanship, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten now answers almost every question with a focus group word salad that rambles about “multinationals, millionaires, limousines, banks, top end of town”, with little attempt to engage in meaningful policy debate.

MPs are drawing these political battlelines presumably because they think the position they are advocating will be to their political advantage — so that they can stay in/seize power.

But the assumption that they want power to enact policy that they believe is in the best interest of Australians is playing second fiddle to the notion of power being an end in itself.

The obsession with Newspoll, turning Federal politics into a football match, has only made this tendency worse.

In this environment, any reform becomes almost impossible.

Without bipartisanship, vested interests and minor parties take on even more prominence in the public debate, and their influence becomes critical.

This means that rather than a sensible policy debate that coalesces around the centre where most voters align politically, extreme views and ambit claims from minor parties become a normal part of law-making negotiations.

Labor, by opposing most Government policies and vacating the field, actually gives more power to the likes of One Nation and other minor parties whose support then becomes critical for passing legislation.

Bipartisanship has become a dirty word in politics, with the Abbott-style, take-no-prisoners approach to Opposition becoming the norm.

It is hard to think of an example, other than with foreign affairs and national security, where a bipartisan approach has been taken on a policy issue that affects the daily lives of Australians. No wonder voters have little faith in Federal politics.

Frydenberg’s speech referred to former prime minister John Howard who argued that ideas were “not political ends in themselves, but the basis for developing practical policies that work for the common good”.

But, sadly, we now live in different times, and the battle of ideas has become too often about the battle, with the common good an afterthought.